I long to be inside the sea anywhere on this globe I touch.
I’m finding me again; the nautical me who thrives in blue-green waves and the energizingly brisk, cold, salt water.
Soon, I will travel to the land of Ferdinand Magellan whose expeditions lead to the first circumnavigation of the earth in the early 1500’s. I wrote a report on him in the 5th grade. Fun fact: Magellan named the “Peaceful Sea” that we know as the Pacific Ocean. Other Portuguese explorers: Prince Henry the Navigator, Vasco da Gama, and a host of Spaniards charted new territory in The Age of Discovery which began mapping the world through various explorations. This led to The Age of Exploration from the 15th century to the 17th century when cartographers copied maps while adding new information obtained from extensive navigational expeditions. (I must comment on the hell this brought to native people in the places they “found.”)
I long to live a life of freedom from the grind of deadlines and disappointment. I long to have time to read the six nonfiction books I’ve started all the way to the end. I long to polish globes, running my fingertips around the circumference of the equator, arctic circle, and up along the 37th parallel (as I am now). I long to compose melodies and write lyrics of fascination, offering, accord, and tranquility.
Maps, ostentatious maps! Take me away!
Planispherio de Cantino 1502 (above)
